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Supporting Academic Reading and Notetaking Strategies

Though reading skills and notetaking strategies continue to evolve throughout a student鈥檚 academic career, concrete reading strategies are rarely talked about or explicitly taught at the college level.

Instructors can scaffold and frame assigned readings to have significant impact on students鈥 reading effectiveness. When you teach reading strategies, students will be more likely to learn more and produce quality work.

Small Steps to Support Academic Reading

Encourage Skimming

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  • Indicate more important sections of a text so students know where to read closely and where to skim.
  • Look at the table of contents or headings with your students so they know what to expect, and they can then manage their reading time accordingly.
  • Model and discuss your reading habits for determining where it is appropriate to do a close-reading versus a skim.

Contextualize the Reading

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  • Tell your students why you are assigning the texts you are asking them to read.
  • Provide students with contextual information about the reading which will help them situate it within the larger body of work.
  • Bridge what students are currently reading with prior knowledge or experience.

Promote Responding

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  • Provide questions for students to consider so they may address them and know what textual support to look for as they annotate.
  • Encourage students to see themselves in conversation with the author/text rather than just reading to regurgitate facts.

Leverage Accessible Technology

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  • Assign texts that may be adapted to multiple formats (digital PDF, printable hard copy, video with captions, etc.) so students may access the material in the modality that works best for them.
  • Direct students toward assistive reading technology available to them like Read & Write Gold so they may use annotation, translation, or read-aloud functions for digital reading.

Lower Students鈥 Stress with the 3-2-1 Reading Strategy

Introduction

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Students often feel overwhelmed with the amount of readings they are assigned, and they don鈥檛 know how to tell whether they are prepared for class discussion. To simplify the burden of difficult readings or heavy loads, Shawna Shapiro, author of Cultivating Critical Language Awareness in the Writing Classrooms (2022), suggests trying the mnemonic 3-2-1 reading strategy to help students understand and talk about the reading. This tip may work especially well for students reading in a less-familiar language, as Shapiro鈥檚 students have reported it being a transformative move in their education and approach to coursework. In general, this is a strategy that may help any student reading something challenging.

In response to a reading, try telling students that they should aim to come up with three main ideas or concepts, two connections to other readings, the self, or the community, and one question to clarify, reflect, or discuss. Shapiro says, 鈥渉aving a 鈥榯hreshold鈥 for reading in preparation for class can really build students鈥 confidence and curiosity鈥 (296). Ironically, sometimes lowering the expectations a little bit can simultaneously lower the students鈥 stress and help them end up pushing past their limitations and improving the quality of their work.

Learn More About the 3-2-1 Reading Strategy and Shawna Shapiro

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For more information about this helpful reading strategy and other teaching philosophies, approaches, and strategies, check out Shawna Shapiro鈥檚 book, Cultivating Critical Language Awareness in the Writing Classroom (2022). Much of the information in her book is also complied on the , including a handout for students in the form of a 鈥3-2-1 Reading Worksheet,鈥 also found on the back of this resource. To discuss how you can further support students, contact the Writing in the Disciplines Program at wid@uvm.edu.

To Share with Your Students

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Summary of the Strategy:

  • 3 Key Points or Concepts
  • 2 Connections to Self, to Other Texts, or to the World
  • 1 Question or Point of Confusion

Handout/Worksheet for Student Use

Teaching Effective Notetaking

Why Teach Notetaking

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  • Notetaking is an underestimated skill, and many college instructors assume their students are already effective notetakers, but as writers advance in college, their previous skills may need to level up.
  • Good notetaking boosts recall, and students perform best when they take notes and refer back to them. They may still remember material when they don鈥檛 take notes at all, but having a plan in place will provide them a structure for familiarizing themselves with the content.
  • Depending on your teaching style, the discipline, the type of class (lecture, seminar, lab, etc.), and the nature of the content, some notetaking methods may work better than others. Experiment between teaching one or two strategies and catering your instruction to those methods, or offer multiple options to your students and allow them to see what works best.

Notetaking Strategies to Consider

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: This method offers students a specific structure of taking notes that breaks the page down into questions, primary content, and a summary section.

: The most traditional of the strategies, outlining is a standard approach of categorizing content into headings.

: Useful for lessons that follow complex systems of ideas, mapping may be useful for seeing the abstract connections between a train of thought.

: This strategy of charting works best as a handout provided to students ahead of time if you want them to look for specific aspects of the material.

: Consider having students take turns posting notes to a shared space during class, like a Google Doc. According to Harbin (2020), 鈥渋mplementing this pedagogical approach can help foster a more collaborative, inclusive, and equitable learning environment in university classrooms.鈥

日韩无码 Resources for Students Taking Notes

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  • Tutoring Center
    • In the consultation services they offer, note taking is one of the areas a Study Skills tutor works with students on.
  • Note Taking Program
    • See if your students are eligible for a certified Center for Academic Success note taker.

Sources Consulted

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Cornell University, The Learning Strategies Center. 鈥.鈥

Harbin, M. Brielle. (2020). 鈥.鈥 College Teaching, 68(4), 214-220.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Learning Center. 鈥.鈥

Stanford University, Student Learning Programs. 鈥."